For Frank Stitt and the Highlands Bar and Grill team, it was worth the wait

Updated Mar 07, 2019; Posted May 08, 2018

Frank Stitt and the team from Highlands Bar and Grill in Birmingham, Ala., accept the award for the most outstanding restaurant in America at the 2018 James Beard Foundation Awards at the Lyric Opera of Chicago. (Photo courtesy of Highlands Bar and Grill)

The fact that Frank and Pardis Stitt and their restaurant family at Highlands Bar and Grill had to wait 10 years for this moment makes it even sweeter.

On Monday night, after going home disappointed in each of nine consecutive years as a finalist, the celebrated Birmingham restaurant finally won the elusive James Beard Foundation Award for the most outstanding restaurant in America.

Let that sink in for a moment. Savor it. Revel in it. And shout it out loud.

A restaurant from Birmingham, Ala. -- which, until an ambitious and imaginative young chef from Cullman named Frank Stitt came along and opened Highlands Bar and Grill in 1982, was better known for its barbecue and meat-and-threes -- now stands shoulder to shoulder with some of the finest dining establishments in the country.

"You see all of these restaurant nominations," Stitt said in the raucous aftermath of Monday night's awards show at the Lyric Opera of Chicago. "They're from New York, they're from Chicago, they're from San Francisco. Birmingham, people kind of do a double-take."

But not anymore.

Over these past 10 years, Stitt has heard enough comparisons to Susan Lucci -- the soap opera star who infamously went 18 years before finally winning an Emmy Award on her 19th go-around -- to last a lifetime

Highlands Bar and Grill was first a finalist for the outstanding restaurant award in 2009, but every year, Highlands was always edged out by bigger-name restaurants from major cities, like Eleven Madison Park in New York City, Boulevard in San Francisco and Alinea in Chicago.

And in every one of those years, Stitt was always gracious in defeat, even though his disappointment was often hard to disguise.

"This just sort of makes me want to go back and to try harder and just be more inspired," he said in 2014, the sixth year of the streak.

The longer the streak kept going, the more Stitt began to doubt if it was ever meant for Highlands to win.

"We try as hard as we can, but our life will go on if we never win this award," he said last year, when the streak hit nine years in a row.

Stitt quit scribbling down notes for a potential acceptance speech a couple of years ago.

"Typically, everything you wrote, the last three people said the exact same things," he said.

Besides, he didn't want to jinx himself by presuming that Highlands might win.

From left, Frank Stitt, Dolester Miles and Pardis Stitt arrive for the 2018 James Beard Foundation Awards at the Lyric Opera of Chicago. (Bob Carlton/bcarlton@al.com)

Their luck was about to change

Early during Monday evening's award show, though, the first sign that Highlands' luck was about to change came when Dolester Miles, the longtime pastry chef at the restaurant, won the award for outstanding pastry chef.

A small celebration broke out on rows S and T of the old opera house, where nine members of the Highlands team were all sitting together.

"I'm just sitting back here, all laid-back, and then I'm like, 'Oh, my God, did I hear that right?'" Miles recalled. "Frank was like, 'Get up, Dol, get up.'

"I couldn't move for a minute there. I was just in such a shock because I was not expecting for them to call my name."

A couple of hours later, Chicago chef Rick Bayless, whose Topolobampo won the outstanding restaurant award last year, came up to help introduce this year's finalists for the country's top restaurant.

And that was an obvious clue that it really, finally, was going to be Highlands' year.

"Rick Bayless is an old friend," Stitt said afterward. "When he started out by saying that, I was kind of hedging my bets that maybe he might say our name."

Added Highlands bartender Chris Conner: "Then our name comes up on the screen, and it was just like wow."

The entire Highlands Bar and Grill traveling squad -- including Miles, Conner, chef de cuisine Zack Redes, beverage director Matt Gilpin, sommelier Gray Maddox, dining room manager Ryan Ford and server Patrick Noling -- joined Stitt and his wife and business partner, Pardis, on the stage to accept the award they had been working toward all these many years.

And even though Stitt hadn't written anything down, he found the right words to say at the right time.

"I think one of the reasons we're all here is that we've been caught up (in) the magic of restaurants and striving for excellence and trying to create a little bit of beauty in one's work and, hopefully, in our guests' day," he said.

"And it comes from respect in our relationships with our farmers, with our staff, with our guests," he added. "Basically, we've got a really big family that's been working on this since 1982, and there's a lot of love in our heart.

Goren Avery, a server at Highlands who has been there since Stitt opened the restaurant in 1982, also should have been there Monday night, but he stayed back in Birmingham because he's not fond of flying.

"We just got off the phone with Goren," Stitt said afterward. "He was calling to congratulate us. He was just so excited for Dolester, too."

Winning the outstanding restaurant prize the same night that Miles took home the pastry chef award was like the icing on Dolester's legendary coconut-pecan cake.

"Dolester was at Highlands when I opened it in 1982, so we've been working together for that long," Stitt said. "So that's just so great to see her get this kind of recognition, this national recognition. That's so incredible."

A small entourage of folks from Birmingham was also in Chicago Monday night to be part of the celebration, including Mat Whatley, a longtime Highlands Bar and Grill customer and supporter who has attended the James Beard Awards all 10 years the restaurant has been nominated.

"I was getting kind of disappointed for you that we never came home with the trophy (before)," Stitt told Whatley.

Hatton Smith, whose Royal Cup Coffee supplies the gourmet coffee for Highlands Bar and Grill, was there Monday night, too. Smith said he's missed the awards show only once over these past 10 years.

"It was an enormous victory for Highlands, an enormous victory for Birmingham, and for the South," Smith told Stitt.

And yes, now that Highlands Bar and Grill has finally won, Stitt can gladly say that 10 years wasn't too long to wait.

"Certainly,'' he said, "I would have been disappointed if I had only been nominated one time and won this (on the first try).

"This is quite the romantic build-up."

And when the Highlands Bar and Grill crew arrives back home in Birmingham on Tuesday, the real celebration will begin.

"I've got a feeling (Tuesday) night at Highlands, there's going to be a lot of toasts and a lot of celebration," Stitt said.